Think about the future

This is admittedly a weird criticism of a space exploration ride, but it’s true. At the turn of the 21st century, AOL was a $220 billion dollar company, while MySpace, the first dominant social media website was still three years away. Apple wouldn’t release the iPod until 2001, and the iTunes Store wasn’t even open yet. That’s how quickly technology has changed society.

The one concept Disney execs believed would maintain popularity was the space program. Similar thinking is how Ted Turner originally lost a great deal of his fortune in banking on AOL/Time Warner. Society changes, and Disney failed to anticipate consumer passion for space exploration. They knew that Walt Disney had loved it and saw Mission: Space as a way of paying tribute to the timelessness of the concept, only it wasn’t timeless.

Image: Disney

The internet revealed so many new mysteries about our own planet that mankind’s passion for outer space waned. It has only recently started to rise once more, and the reason why is that entrepreneurs are paying for their own ventures. NASA’s still amazing, but outer space is where people send their telephone signals rather than a mystical place representing the great unknown.

Disney built the wrong ride at the wrong time. They jumped on the bandwagon right as everyone else jumped off. They still could have survived this mistake if they’d made a better attraction, but we’ve already discussed why that didn’t happen. Instead, they built a flawed ride at the worst possible time.

Since then, the company has worked hard to select the best attractions independent of where they’d fit into Disney folklore. The re-imagining of New Fantasyland included some shuffling since the original ideas weren’t tight enough. Pandora – The World of Avatar suffered through countless delays as Imagineers demonstrated patience in building great attractions rather than rushing to open with mediocre ones.

Finally, Star Wars Land, the most important Disney creation since Animal Kingdom, will take its sweet time, too. Execs want to study everything that they can about consumer behavior involving the various films and television episodes plus theme park attendance. That way, they will be hailed as conquering heroes when it opens, unlike what transpired with Mission: Space, the Disney attraction that will always be remembered for garnering headlines for all the wrong reasons.